“The irony is not lost on me, that I could never have been at the AAR conference in person. Travelling to conferences as a disabled student is getting more and more difficult… I blog so that I can share my developing ideas in a forum that is actually accessible to me.”

Later edit: Please note that I have now finished interviewing. I am so grateful to all the people who were willing to be interviewed and share their stories with me. The results are on the way!

Although I can’t include absolutely everyone in my research, I’m making an attempt to make the research accessible to as many people as possible. I’m now moving away from discussion groups. Instead, I’m mainly interviewing people one-to-one, either in person or online. Here’s why.

Later edit: Please note that I have now finished interviewing. I am so grateful to all the people who were willing to be interviewed and share their stories with me. The results are on the way!

In my interviews about disability and Christianity so far, one important group is very under-represented: people who used to be Christians, but aren’t anymore. When looking at the way churches treat disabled people, those who haven’t stayed are just as important as those who have – and each group is likely to have quite different views.

John Gillibrand was an excellent keynote speaker. He began by acknowledging that views on disability can be controversial and multifaceted — from the issue of who gets to speak for whom, to the social model vs other ways of approaching disability. John’s son is autistic and is currently in residential care. John’s story was fascinating. He talked about the stress and joys of being a vicar with a disabled child, and some of the other things that he and his family experienced while his son was growing up. He also talked about the way the church could and should be responding to disabled members. While I didn’t agree with everything he said, and his focus on care (rather than equality) worried me a bit, I did enjoy his talk very much, and it was good to hear about the experience of a church leader encountering disability in his family and congregation.

I raised a question at the end of John’s talk: If we focus on care, rather than equality, will this discourage the church from recognising the ministry of disabled people, and from ordaining them as ministers? John didn’t quite answer the question — he spoke about the discrimination experienced by disabled people applying for ordination, but not about whether ideologies towards disabled church members could affect this. But then, there wasn’t much time to discuss this or the many other issues that arose from his talk.

We then moved on to discussing the report that was being launched on the day, in small groups. Reflections from the floor included the need for things to move on much faster — for example, full level access to churches was proposed in the report, but the Diocese has not reported that this has been achieved. Disabled delegates talked about the difficulties they face in their churches, from a lack of BSL* translation and equipment for Deaf people, to the need for clergy to be trained around issues of disability, or at least to have thought about disability at some point in their training.

It was a very positive day, but the message from those attending was clear. The Church of England has a responsibility, not just to talk about access and inclusion, but to make it happen. There were access issues on the day that illustrated this point: while the building used was very accessible for those with mobility difficulties, there was no hearing aid loop, no BSL signing provided, and the structure of the meeting did not make it easy for neurodivergent attendees. The Church of England is clearly working hard to find out how to make their work and services more accessible to disabled people, but the general feeling at the meeting, from disabled and non-disabled delegates alike, is that it’s time they stopped talking and put ideas into practice.

Image: steps up to a church door. By Charles Clegg. Creative Commons licence, Flickr.

Update, 15/4/16: We have now finished looking for participants, and the results of the study are on the way! Thank you to everyone who generously took part and shared their stories.

I’m looking for people who are disabled (or have long-term illnesses or learning difficulties), who attend churches, or used to. I’m hoping to explore people’s stories of disability and Christianity with them, with the aim of finding out more about the situation for disabled Christians today, and being able to share this knowledge with churches in the future.

Under the ‘read more’ link, you can find an FAQ with details about how you can get involved, what you’re committing to, and how we’ll try to make it possible for you to take part. I’d love to hear from you if you think you might fit the categories I’ve outlined below. Please have a look at the FAQ, and if you’re interested, get in touch.